Square Enix cancels future Final Fantasy XV DLC, game director resigns

Following on from Square Enix's $33 million loss yesterday, the publisher has held a Final Fantasy XV livestream, essentially to announce that future DLCs are now cancelled. The game was set to get another set of character focussed ‘episodes' in 2019 but this will no longer be the case. On top of that, Final Fantasy XV director, Hajime Tabata, has resigned.

Following on from Final Fantasy XV, Square Enix gave Hajime Tabata his own studio known as ‘Luminous Productions', which was set to develop new Triple A games and other media content. A chunk of Square Enix's financial loss this year came from setting that studio up. According to Eurogamer, Tabata was given the option of turning Luminous Productions into one of Square Enix's regular business divisions, or spin it off into a separate company with investment from the publisher. Ultimately, Tabata chose to resign.

During his time at Square Enix, Hajime Tabata worked on Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core, Final Fantasy Type-0, Final Fantasy XV and a host of other titles. Final Fantasy XV was considered a success, but this news does put an abrupt end to the for future episode DLCs planned for the game. That is with the exception of Episode Ardyn, which will still release next year as a final send-off for the game.

Tabata hasn't announced what he will be doing next but Luminous Productions will continue to exist under Square Enix.

KitGuru Says: This was a fairly swift turn of events. Hopefully Tabata continues to work in the games industry in the future at a new studio. Did many of you play Final Fantasy XV? What do you think of today's announcements from Square Enix?

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